Measuring shared team mental models: A meta-analysis.

Although shared team mental models are believed to be important to team functioning, substantial interstudy differences in the manner in which mental models are operationalized has impeded progress in this area. We use meta-analysis to cumulate 23 independent studies that have empirically examined shared mental models (SMMs) in relation to team process and performance and test three aspects of measurement as potential moderators: elicitation method, structure representation, and representation of emergence. Results indicate the way in which SMMs are measured and represented at the team level of analysis reveal meaningful distinctions in observed relationships. Specifically, shared mental model operationalization impacts the observed relationship between SMMs and team process; importantly, only methods that model the structure or organization of knowledge are predictive of process. Conversely, while the magnitude of the relationship differed across measurement method, SMMs were positively related to team performance regardless of the manner of operationalization. In summary, knowledge structure is predictive of team process, and both knowledge content and structure are predictive of team performance

Information sharing and team performance: A meta-analysis.

Information sharing is a central process through which team members collectively utilize their available informational resources. The authors used meta-analysis to synthesize extant research on team information sharing. Meta-analytic results from 72 independent studies (total groups ϭ 4,795; total N ϭ 17,279) demonstrate the importance of information sharing to team performance, cohesion, decision satisfaction, and knowledge integration. Although moderators were identified, information sharing positively predicted team performance across all levels of moderators. The information sharing-team performance relationship was moderated by the representation of information sharing (as uniqueness or openness), performance criteria, task type, and discussion structure by uniqueness (a 3-way interaction). Three factors affecting team information processing were found to enhance team information sharing: task demonstrability, discussion structure, and cooperation. Three factors representing decreasing degrees of member redundancy were found to detract from team information sharing: information distribution, informational interdependence, and member heterogeneity. Keywords: group, information sharing, information sampling bias, hidden profile, information processing Organizations are increasingly assigning complex decisionmaking tasks to teams rather than to lone individuals. Personnel selection decisions usually require input from a selection committee rather than a single hiring manager; homicide investigations are typically conducted by a group of detectives rather than by a single officer; the assignment of guilt or innocence to an accused criminal is the responsibility of a jury rather than a judge. A primary advantage of using small groups and teams in these situations is to expand the pool of available information, thereby enabling groups to reach higher quality solutions than could be reached by any one individual. Still, superior solutions to complex decision tasks require members to effectively integrate unique, relevant, and often diverse informational sets. Despite the intuitive importance of effective information sharing (IS) for team decision-making (e.g., These results raise a number of questions of significant importance to the research and practice of teams. We used meta-analysis to cumulate empirical findings culled from studies examining various task domains and discussion structures as well as different aspects of IS and performance criteria to address the following questions: First, to what extent does IS impact team performance? Second, what role do moderators play in this relationship (i.e., definition of IS, operationalization of performance criteria, discussion structure, and team task type)? Third, which factors promote (e.g., cooperation) and suppress (e.g., information distribution) IS? Information Sharing Uniqueness and Openness Differing theoretical and operational definitions of IS in teams may partially explain discrepant findings reported in the extant literature regarding the role of IS in performance. Most prior work on IS originates wit

How Family-Friendly Work Environments Affect Work/Family Conflict: A Meta-Analytic Examination

We report a meta-analytic examination of the value of five facets of family-friendly work environments (FFWEs) in reducing work/family conflict (WFC). Cumulation of 38 studies (total N = 13,605) suggests that facets of FFWE may provide less assistance to workers in managing WFC than one may hope, as none explained more than seven percent of the variance in WFC. A family-friendly work culture seems most influential in reducing WFC. Importantly, spousal support and FFWEs explain different portions of variance in WFC, suggesting that FFWEs are uniquely valuable to workers in achieving work/ family balance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Information Sharing And Team Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Information sharing is a central process through which team members collectively utilize their available informational resources. The authors used meta-analysis to synthesize extant research on team information sharing. Meta-analytic results from 72 independent studies (total groups = 4,795; total N = 17,279) demonstrate the importance of information sharing to team performance, cohesion, decision satisfaction, and knowledge integration. Although moderators were identified, information sharing positively predicted team performance across all levels of moderators. The information sharing-team performance relationship was moderated by the representation of information sharing (as uniqueness or openness), performance criteria, task type, and discussion structure by uniqueness (a 3-way interaction). Three factors affecting team information processing were found to enhance team information sharing: task demonstrability, discussion structure, and cooperation. Three factors representing decreasing degrees of member redundancy were found to detract from team information sharing: information distribution, informational interdependence, and member heterogeneity. © 2009 American Psychological Association

The Cognitive Underpinnings Of Effective Teamwork: A Meta-Analysis

Major theories of team effectiveness position emergent collective cognitive processes as central drivers of team performance. We meta-analytically cumulated 231 correlations culled from 65 independent studies of team cognition and its relations to teamwork processes, motivational states, and performance outcomes. We examined both broad relationships among cognition, behavior, motivation, and performance, as well as 3 underpinnings of team cognition as potential moderators of these relationships. Findings reveal there is indeed a cognitive foundation to teamwork; team cognition has strong positive relationships to team behavioral process, motivational states, and team performance. Meta-analytic regressions further indicate that team cognition explains significant incremental variance in team performance after the effects of behavioral and motivational dynamics have been controlled. The nature of emergence, form of cognition, and content of cognition moderate relationships among cognition, process, and performance, as do task interdependence and team type. Taken together, these findings not only cumulate extant research on team cognition but also provide a new interpretation of the impact of underlying dimensions of cognition as a way to frame and extend future research. © 2010 American Psychological Association

A Meta-Analytic Investigation Of Virtuality And Information Sharing In Teams

We uncover new insights on the role of virtuality on team information sharing. A new two-dimensional conceptualization of information sharing (Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch, 2009) enabled us to reconcile past inconsistencies in the virtual team literature. Recasting the findings of 94 studies (total number of groups = 5596; total N approximately = 19,702) into this framework reveals three key insights. First, virtuality improves the sharing of unique information, but hinders the openness of information sharing. Second, unique information sharing is more important to the performance of face-to-face teams than is open information sharing, whereas open information sharing is more important to the performance of virtual teams than is unique information sharing. Third, the effects of virtuality on information sharing are more curvilinear than linear - such that low levels of virtuality improve information sharing, but high levels hider it. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2011 Elsevier Inc

Dissonance Matters: Meta-Analytic Examination Of The Consequences Of Emotional Labor

Meta-analytic results from 63 independent studies (total N = 17,338) demonstrated that emotional labor (EL; the process by which employees manage their true feelings so they can express organizationally desired emotions) is associated with a range of harmful consequences - employee burnout, work withdrawal, turnover intentions, as well as decreased employee health, job satisfaction, and performance. Results suggest the extent to which dissonance exists between felt and expressed emotions moderates the degree to which EL incurs harmful consequences. The dissonance forms of emotional labor (surface acting and emotional dissonance) partially mediate the effects of organizational EL display rules on burnout